Autonomous Alleviating Loads of boom air refueling

During boom refueling, alleviating loads is necessary to guarantee the safety and process. This paper proposes Autonomous Load Alleviation (ALA), without any operators, which is accomplished through linear quadratic optimal control. The loads can be sensed in two directions, mutually perpendicular, between nozzle and receptacle. To demonstrate the implement of ALA, advanced high-fidelity models is very necessary, including coupled aerodynamic model of boom and mechanical model of sensor. Through decoupling the boom model, either degree-of-freedom can be separately-controlled, which favors alleviating either of mutually perpendicular loads.